Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 With DDR4 Is 50% Slower Than The GDDR5 Model

The Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 is a low-end graphics card that was initially released with GDDR5 chips, but a number of manufacturers have now produced a cheaper version of the GT 1030 which uses DDR4 memory chips instead of GDDR5. However, it looks like this cheaper GT 1030 version results in a much lower performance – sometimes even up to 50%.

Gigabyte, MSI, and Palit are amongst the manufacturers who have released the slower DDR4 versions. These GT 1030 have a maximum bandwidth of only 2100 Mbit/s, a little over a third that the GDDR5 version produces with 6000 Mbit/s. This results in the total memory bandwidth being 16,8 GB/s, a far cry from the original GT 1030’s 48 GB/s.

However, the memory isn’t the only thing that’s been adjusted on these cards, as the clock speed of the GPU has been altered by all manufacturers as well. The DDR4 versions of the GeForce 1030 have up to 100 MHz lower clock speeds than the reference GDDR5 model. The TDP has also been adjusted from 30W to 20W.

GamersNexus has gotten its hands on a GDDR5 version of the GT 1030, as well as a DDR4 model. The results are somewhat stunning, with a result of 1922 points for the DDR4 model in the 3DMark Firestrike Benchmark versus the 3793 points of the GDDR5 card.

In practical gaming benchmarks, the differences can even be much stronger. For example, the Counter-Strike Global Offensive benchmark shows a result of 55 and 122,7 frames per second for the DDR4 and GDDR5 version, respectively.

Unfortunately, it appears that manufacturers aren’t too keen on clearly stating the differences between the DDR4 and GDDR5 model, as all of these graphics cards are simply branded as ‘GT 1030’ and show no exterior changes, despite the major performance differences. GamersNexus even calls it “a disgrace of a graphics card.” In other words, if you’re in the market for a GT 1030 – it’s best to do your research beforehand.